Topics - Keyser soze

Right, time to get aboard early lads before next week's bandwagon departs.

You can only get a ticket if you're frothing at the mouth with righteous indignation. Or if you are one of the Usual Suspects.

The bandwagon payload has not been requisitioned yet, [though that won't make a blind bit of difference to the U S's].

Previous bandwagons have been propelled along by gusts of hot air, and copious amounts of other noxious gasses no doubt, on topics such as Burn out, Sledging, Blanket defences, the format of the Championship, yadda yadda yadda.

No knowledge of the subject, basic grasp of the facts or even ability to frame a cogent argument are required to participate. Objectivity will however be frowned upon.

Highly rated skills [this is not an exhaustive list] will be the ability to succumb to hyperbole over trivialities, parrotting nonsense that some clown has uttered on the TV as if it is the given word of our lord himself, zero sense of perspective, no vision of how things could be improved, but an absolute certainty that they're are far from good enough at the minute, the most rosiest-tinted-glasses ever which reveal the Gaa world of the past to be so perfect.

This place is looking a bit shabby, time to move the furniture round a bit.

The Child Boards in Local Gaa Discussion are a complete waste of space. In the past I would have looked at other counties threads. However after they were all separated out I never do, as its too much work and one can't see the activity around a particular county without actually going into their local discussion. Having done a quick survey there is usually only one topic active for each county [if that] so why not combine them again.

For instance in the most popular local Child Board, Derry, there hasnt been a post in the second most recent discussion topic in months, and this appears to be true for most of them. All of the Child Boards plus any 'hot' topics would comfortably fit onto one page under Local Gaa Discussion.

Tbh I d like to see the Hurling combined under Gaa Discussion as well, as I would be interested in reading about it, but find that I dont go into it as it too is a separate page.

Can you imagine the furore there would be if the shoe were on the other foot here. The hyprocisy of these people is breathtaking. and to think it was clowns like this that were in positions of power over life and death here.

There are generally about 15 county teams which take part in this competition. It is for players of 40+ years who don't necessarily need to have beeen former county players, though there are many former well known players taking part, including all-ireland winning captains and all-stars. The purpose of the Masters is to provide players with a platform to play games in an environment with their peers [so we won't be doing some old-school tricks on the cubs ] in a competitive environment.

The Masters for me represents everything that is good about the GAA, people going out in a spirit of comradeship to play a game they love, training and working hard to get a wee bit better every week, meeting old friends or people you only met on the pitch in the past and becoming good mates with them, telling yarns about each other and players you played with and against, getting to play in a good competitive match with people of your own vintage, going for a beer with friend and foe afterwards and having a great evening's craic. I can truthfully, and i know i speak for many of my fellow players, say that this has been as enjoyable a GAA experience as I've had in my long involvement in the sport.

We have just been informed by Croke Park that this competition, which has been running very successfully for a number of years, will not be taking place this year as they are not prepared to sanction it. There does not appear to be a definitive answer as to why CP are refusing to sanction this competition but some of the theories [in the absence of any official correspondence on the matter from CP] are that the paid officials in CP are too lazy to administer this competition, that they don't want to provide insurance for this [a sum of a less than e5000], or that it in some way contravenes GAA policy or ethos. Over the past 2 years this competition has been treated disgracefully. Last year it had been half completed before CP pulled the plug. It was then reinstated at the end of the summer and didn't finish until November. This year we had been training since start of June only to be informed last week, after a protracted series of meetings which went on for 3 months, that the competition would definitely not take place. I'm sure there were many other teams in a similar position.

Perhaps somebody could provide a clear explanation as to why this competition has been jettisoned, it provided enjoyment for many gaels in the [whatever comes after] twilight of their careers who just enjoyed playing gaelic football.